RV Adventures

Yellowstone National Park – Part Three: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

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When we Arizonans hear “Grand Canyon,” we think of the big hole in the northern part of our state. But did you know that Yellowstone also has a Grand Canyon and it’s spectacular? In fact, the Canyon area of the national park is the second most visited area in the park, just behind Old Faithful.

Our first glimpse of the canyon was on our first day’s drive around the park. By the time we got to the south rim, we were tired and not interested in doing any kind of in-depth exploration. We took some pictures and moved on. But, we knew we had to return to do a full exploration of the north rim.

Once again, we arrived in the early morning to avoid the crowds and it was a good idea. In fact, at some overlooks we were the only people there! The early morning mist and low hanging clouds also added to the dramatic atmosphere. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is punctuated by two massive falls–upper and lower. Each fall has a trail that take you down over 500 feet to the brink of the falls. We did both.

The trails are short but steep, and the rewards are magnificent. To be able to stand atop a waterfall that is rushing downward right before your eyes is a real rush.

In addition to hiking the “brink” trails we also walked the north rim trail to the end. All along the 2 1/2 mile trail we could see into the canyon that has been carved by the Yellowstone River over millions of years. Words like “spectacular,” “magnificent,” and “incredible” are not enough to describe the grandeur of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

After we explored the canyon and strolled through the visitor center and gift shop, we headed to one more area that our guidebooks highly recommended: Artists Paint Pots. We had to wait out a hailstorm, but that just added to the mystery of this place. The Paint Pots thermal area features a one mile loop across boardwalks that pass colorful geothermal springs and mud pots, with the highlight being the boiling mud pots.

In fact, our guidebook called this feature the “giggliest” thermal feature in Yellowstone. Hopefully this video gives you a good idea of why it’s such a funny thing.

Does it feel like we’ve done a lot already? Well, we have and there’s still more to come. We’ll have another blog post coming your way soon to describe the fun things we did outside the park and to feature all the incredible animals we met during our Yellowstone travels.

Yellowstone National Park – Part Two: Old Faithful

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Our time in Yellowstone National Park would not be complete without considerable time focused on the thermal features of the park. The Yellowstone region has more than 10,000 geothermal features, including 300 geysers. The most notable geyser is, of course, Old Faithful. Thousands flock to the stadium-like area around the world’s most famous geyser and about every 75-90 minutes she erupts without fail. Even though it wasn’t the first time for either of us, we had to go and pay our respects.

The challenge of properly seeing Old Faithful is navigating the crowds. As mentioned in our last post, the crush of people, combined with road construction, makes a trip to Old Faithful a trying experience in the middle of the day. We opted for a very early morning visit and enjoyed every minute.

Old Faithful is just one of many geysers, springs, and other thermal features that populate the Upper Geyser Basin. We walked the boardwalks behind Old Faithful amidst the morning fog and were treated to incredible perspectives on the varied features.

The coolest thing we saw was at the end of our walk through the basin. We came upon Riverside Geyser where a nice man named Jim told us that the geyser was about to erupt. There were only five of us standing in the viewing area when, just as Jim (a veteran geyser expert) said, the geyser blew. Riverside Geyser currently erupts about every two hours, but that varies. When it erupts, it goes for an average of 22 minutes.

Hot water spewed out the top of the rock formation that sits aside the Firehole River. Massive amounts of steam billowed towards the sky, and then we were sprinkled with a mist that was cool and refreshing. It almost didn’t seem real. Steve got a good video to show you what we saw. Wow…just wow!

Our viewing of Old Faithful’s eruption about 30 minutes later was a little anti-climactic, to say the least. Still, we enjoyed the ritual with Mia and Bob by our side.

As you can imagine, we took A LOT of photos on this excursion. Below are a few more just for fun…

An early morning excursion like this must be followed by some retail therapy in one of the park’s many gift shops, followed by lunch along another peaceful stream.

There’s much more to report from Yellowstone. Stay tuned!

Yellowstone National Park – Part One

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Our summer National Parks tour wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t explore America’s first National Park, Yellowstone. We’ve spent eight days in and around the park and there’s so much to report. And let’s be honest, eight days is not nearly enough time to fully explore this incredible place, but we did our best to get a taste of the highlights.

We first arrived to our campground in Island Park, Idaho and got settled in. Valley View RV Campground was a good location from which to explore Yellowstone. We were about 15 miles from the park’s west entrance in West Yellowstone but far enough away from the crowds that there was space to relax.

As soon as we were settled, we rushed to the park, getting slowed down by the massive crowds as soon as we entered the park boundaries. Yellowstone is always busy in the summer but we were overwhelmed with the volume of people all around us. We learned right away that it’s best to go into the park early or late in the day and avoid the popular sights during mid-day.

Yellowstone is a massive park made up of eight regions around which key attractions and tourist services are based. The main areas are: Mammoth Hot Springs, Tower, Canyon, Fishing Bridge, West Thumb, Old Faithful, Madison, and Norris. Our goal was to visit each of these areas in some way during our time in the park. This summer, the road from Tower to Canyon was closed and other services were also shuttered due to construction. Nevertheless, we covered as much ground as we could.

Norris Geyser Basin

The first main area we explored in depth was the Norris Geyser Basin. Yellowstone features numerous places where thermal features abound. Norris is the oldest and hottest of Yellowstone’s thermal basins. It is filled with acidic waters that allow different classes of thermophiles to live. The thermophiles create different color patterns within the springs and vents based on the water temperature. It’s otherworldly.

We followed the self-guided boardwalk tour and read about the different thermal features. Mostly we enjoyed the cool morning, the rainbow of colors, and the incredible views. By visiting early in the morning, we avoided the crowds that flock to this area mid-day.

Like on most days, we followed our early morning explorations with lunch or a snack alongside one of Yellowstone’s many beautiful rivers and streams. On this day we stopped at the Gibbon River picnic area and took in the sights and sounds around us.

Biking to Grand Prismatic Spring Overlook

Another popular area in Yellowstone is Midway Geyser Basin with Grand Prismatic Spring as the star. Grand Prismatic is the largest hot spring in Yellowstone at 370 feet wide and 121 feet deep. It is encircled by a boardwalk that is normally packed with tourists. In fact, it’s hard to get through the traffic in this area during the day. That’s why we decided to instead visit by bicycle.

Yellowstone is not overly bike friendly, but there is an old road, Fountain Freight Road, that runs to the backside of Grand Prismatic and leads you to the Grand Prismatic Overlook. We enjoyed a nice six mile round trip pedal through the geyser basin and surrounding landscape. Once we reached the overlook trail, we left the bikes and climbed the hill to get a birds-eye view of the massive, colorful spring.

Along the way back we even stopped to check out a few off-the-beaten-path thermal features. I’m telling you…the bike is the way to see Yellowstone!

We visited Norris and Grand Prismatic in one day and it was a full one! Yellowstone is so big that it’s impossible to see it all. Even if you lived in the park you’d never really see it all as the area is constantly changing. But you know us…when we travel, we try to do as much as possible. So, we have a few more blog posts on the way featuring more of our Yellowstone adventures..